


Parks and Pencil Marks

by thatmountainhermit



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Introspection, Light Angst, Marinette draws and has feelings, deteriorating friendship, i guess?, it ends kind of nicely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23393404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatmountainhermit/pseuds/thatmountainhermit
Summary: The park is close to Marinette. So of course she goes to sketch there from time to time. But she forgets that she's not the only one who likes the park, and she's forced to think about what's happened to her friendships.
Relationships: Alya Césaire & Lila Rossi, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 4
Kudos: 141





	Parks and Pencil Marks

**Author's Note:**

> I love Marinette. I get to project so hard onto this poor girl. Sorry, Mari.  
> Edit 31/03/2020: if you wanna roleplay so bad, do it on your own blog/social media/make your own space for it

She forgot, sometimes, that the park was a popular spot for most of her classmates. It was close by, even if only three of them lived around the little square of houses that surrounded it. Bigger than the courtyards that most of her peers lived around, and greener. She didn’t have a reserved right to the park. She knew this. She had walked into the park, plopped under one of her favorite trees, into her favorite spot, and opened her sketchbook, glad to see so many people in the park. 

It still felt like a punch to her gut when she saw them. Crowded on a bench together, with Lila in the middle. All of them chattering away, showing each other pictures or videos or  _ something _ on their phones. A group of close friends. A group that, apparently, didn’t include her.

She considered waving towards them, torn between inviting Lila’s ire and just wanting to spend time with her friends. But instead of doing that, she merely watched as they didn’t even look towards her, chattering away, laughing and lightly pushing each other as they left the park. Alya hadn’t seen her. Apparently none of them had thought to invite her. Did they even send her a message? 

She knew the answer to that was no. She had been doing her homework all morning, her messages open on her tablet, ready to distract herself whenever someone sent anything in their class group chat, whatever it might have been. They all knew she was free, didn’t they?

She swallowed around the lump that had grown in her throat, putting pencil to paper. She had come here to draw. So draw she would. She would throw herself into this drawing, make it so spectacular that she would barely think that her friends hadn’t thought to invite her, even as they walked past the bakery and towards wherever they had planned to go next. 

She would draw.

But even as she tried to pour her focus onto the page, pencil heavy against the paper, marking it clearly, deeply, she could feel it. That ache. It hurt, somewhere deep inside of her. It hurt most watching Alya and Lila together. Hearing them chatter between classes, in the locker room, on the stairs in front of the school. That all-consuming ache, somewhere between her lungs and her stomach and her heart, tugging at them each, pushing them, constantly and consistently. Coming in slow, deliberate waves that she could feel for every millisecond of every moment that Alya turned to Lila instead of herself. 

Was it her fault? Was it Alya’s? Did the blame lay somewhere between them? Lila didn’t help, of course. But Alya was her best friend, wasn’t she? That’s what they promised, over a macaron made by her own two hands, made with wishes and hopes and more than a tiny bit of desperation. 

She could feel the distance between them with every step they took out of sync, every stunted conversation. She could feel it growing with every mention of Lila, every turned-down hangout, every class where Alya chose Lila over herself. 

And Marinette didn’t know how to fix it. How could she fix it? Where would she begin? With what words? She had never been good with words. Weaving worlds, building unbreakable bonds, creating with words was Alya’s forte - Marinette could barely get a complete sentence correct, sometimes. 

Her pencil stilled on the page, taking in the harsh, spiky drawing, the shaky lines in front of her. Heat welled behind her eyes. She closed them. Took a breath. Opened them. Took another breath, then another. Kept going. Focused on the world around her. 

The park was lush and green. The other kids in the block playing, their parents sitting on various benches. Marinette herself was still sitting beneath that verdant tree that she loved. But the day around her was so heavily at odds with her mood, now. The sun shining, no clouds in the sky, a warm day. A beautiful day. 

The kind of day she should be spending with her best friends. 

Marinette shook her head harshly, looking down at her sketchbook again. Turned to a fresh page. For a new sketch, with the hope that this one would be a little softer. A little less jagged. A little less of the thoughts that she’d promised herself to not dwell on. The flowers by the fountain, maybe. Or the trees across the park. The ones hanging over a pair of mothers who chatted to each other while their children between them and the playground, familiar with each other. Close. The kind that came from knowing each other for so long. The kind she’d hoped to have one day with-

She shook her head again. No, not them.

She felt Tikki shifting in her purse, settling once more, quite soundly asleep. Breaking her thoughts, if only for a moment. She gently, lightly, patted the purse, reminding herself that Tikki was with her, would always be with her, always supporting her. Tikki, with her gentle encouragement and enthusiastic grins and comforting (though tiny) hugs. Tikki, her loudest cheerleader, her closest confidant, her occasional voice of reason. When had the concept of creation become a better best friend than her actual best friend? Marinette didn’t know. But she would forever be grateful to her little kwami. To her friend.

Marinette closed her eyes, again. Breathed, again. Opened, again. Then she turned her eye to the world once more, skipping over children running amok and parents chatting and friends and lovers and anyone with someone else. 

Eventually, her eyes settled on another loner not too far from herself, on a stranger who was sitting under another tree. Their headphones on, their eyes closed to the world around them, their hands splayed in the grass. Fingers moving, feeling the grass underneath them. Foot tapping, in time with whatever music they were listening to. Mouth moving from time to time, mouthing occasional words to the song, though silently. Peaceful. Present. 

Marinette wanted that peaceful presence, too. 

Her pencil began to scratch against the paper, marking out the lines of the stranger. Her focus became the angle of their back, the curl of their fingers, the swoop of hair. The relaxed lines in their face and their smooth brow and unworried bend of their knee.

And for just one moment, she was headed back to fine again. 


End file.
